For more than 30 years, Jerry Reinsdorf has made the key decisions for the White Sox.

He's even hoping to control the team's future after he's gone.

Reinsdorf, 77, the chairman and controlling owner, told the Tribune that he plans to own the baseball franchise until "I don't wake up or have no idea who Harold Baines is," referring to the Sox legend. Reinsdorf said that upon his death, control of the team would pass to the executors of his will, and he has "strongly suggested" that they sell the team.

Reinsdorf already had raised questions about the team's future when he said in May that he recommended to his three sons that they sell the family's interest in the Sox after he dies.

Some were surprised, given that since he bought the Sox and the Bulls some three decades ago, the franchises have won championships and skyrocketed in value.

So, both franchises undoubtedly will feel the impact when he leaves the city's sports scene. But while the Bulls' future seems straight and clear – his son Michael has been in charge of business operations since 2010 – Reinsdorf never has offered details about what's ahead for the Sox franchise, now estimated by Forbes at $692 million.

Since 1981, when Reinsdorf headed a group that bought the team for $19 million, he never has been a majority owner of the team, just one of dozens of investors. But Reinsdorf, who recently became the longest-tenured owner in Major League Baseball, always has held virtually unfettered control of the team because he holds a majority stake in the corporation that runs the team, according to interviews with Reinsdorf and other partners.

He said that gives him — and the executors of his will, whom he declined to name — authority to sell without the approval of other investors. Experts said that, if sold today, the team could easily surpass the $800 million paid two years ago for the San Diego Padres, a team with just 13 winning seasons and scant tradition.

While Reinsdorf makes the team's future appear clear-cut, it may not be. One son said in an interview that he isn't sure what will happen. And while other investors in the Sox agree that Reinsdorf asserts absolute control on sales, they expressed confusion about what would happen once Reinsdorf dies. Some indicated a desire to own the team well into the future.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'd have no intention to sell. There is much more we want to do — win another World Series, for one thing," said Chuck Walsh, 81, a real estate developer and original investor. "When my passage comes along, I would think my kids would enjoy the ownership."

If the decision to sell goes to Reinsdorf's sons, at least one said he hasn't made up his mind about whether to sell.

"It depends on the day," Michael Reinsdorf said. "We'll see what happens when that day comes."

In 1980, Bill Veeck Jr., the popular owner who had regained control of the Sox in 1975, was struggling to keep the team afloat and needed to put it on the market. He agreed to sell to Ed DeBartolo, a real estate magnate from Ohio, but Major League Baseball owners and the commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn, wouldn't support him. Among the concerns were alleged ties to organized crime.

Instead, the league backed a limited partnership led by Reinsdorf, a Brooklyn native and baseball fanatic who by then had made millions in real estate, and Eddie Einhorn, Reinsdorf's Northwestern Law School classmate, then a sports-broadcasting executive.

To raise the money, Reinsdorf recruited his friends, relatives and holdovers from Veeck's ownership group. The minimum investment was $250,000 — 1.32 percent stake of the team, according to court records — though Reinsdorf said he waived that for some. They agreed to his plan, which made Reinsdorf the majority shareholder in the team's general partner, which is the controlling entity. The rest of the company is made up of limited partners and minority shareholders in the general partner, none of whom has any control, according to interviews with a dozen of them.

They pulled together more than $19 million.

"That was what they were worth at the time," said board member Judd Malkin, chairman of JMB Realty Corp., who was a real estate partner of Reinsdorf's in the early 1970s. "We didn't steal it; we don't think we overpaid."

Reinsdorf reportedly owned 4 percent to 5 percent of the team at the beginning but has gradually increased his stake. Four partners told the Tribune that Reinsdorf now owns 14 percent. Reinsdorf said that figure is "significantly understated" but declined to provide another amount.